The Dusty Bookcase

04 March 2019

Miss Fenwick's Good Old Hockey Match

More than a fortnight has passed since my last post, but I haven't been lazy. It's been a hectic time, centred around our third move in seven months. To think that we lived over a decade in our last home. Our new house is much smaller, but an addition is planned. Right now, bookcases are the priority.

During all this activity, I somehow managed a couple of pieces for next issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. The longer of the two concerns Canada Reads, CBC Books' "literary Survivor" (their words, not mine). The shorter is a review The Arch-Satirist, a 1910 novel by elocutionist Frances de Wolfe Fenwick. I wish I could say that I liked the novel. Set in fin de siècle Montreal, it begins with great promise by introducing a degenerate, drug-laden teenage poet, only to shift focus to Lynn Thayer, another of those self-sacrificing female characters that are all too common in early Canadian literature.

The Canadian Bookman, July 1910

Still, the novel managed to hold my interest; in part, because of its cynical depiction of Montreal Society (Miss Fenwick was a member). It's not much of a stretch to conclude that scenes involving the Golden Square Mile set were inspired by actual events, particularly given the fact the author's second novel, A Soul on Fire (1915), features a character so clearly modelled on Sir Andrew Macphail.

Perhaps the greatest value in The Arch-Satirist comes in its depiction of a late-nineteenth-century "hockey match." I've never seen this novel referenced in histories of the sport, and so encourage chroniclers of the early game – Stephen Harper is one – to follow this link., which leads to a six-page description of the match and the building in which it was played.

Read "Caruso" for "Calvé."

Constructed in 1898, the Montreal Arena stood at the corner of St Catherine and Wood, and is thought to have been the first building designed specifically for hockey. The match described by Miss Fenwick is played between the Wales and the Conquerers – likely the Wanderers and the Canadiens, both of which called the Arena home.

I'll leave with these remarks made by Estelle Hadwell, Lynn Thayer's closest friend. Those who don't much care for hockey will appreciate:

I do love to be fin-de-siecle,'' she had said. "But, when it comes to hockey or pug dogs — well, I simply can't, that's all.'' Then she had told a plaintive tale of how, when a girl, she had been taken to a hockey match. Her escort had been an enthusiast of the most virulent type; and she had been obliged to feign a joy which she by no means felt.
"It was ghastly," she observed, ghastly. "There I sat, huddled in grandmother's seal-skin which wasn't a bit becoming, and watched a lot of weird things dressed like circus clowns knocking a bit of rubber round a slippery rink. And all those poor misguided beings who had paid two, three and five dollars to see them do it yelled like mad whenever the rubber got taken down a little faster than usual — oh, you may laugh! but I can tell you that when one of those silly men whacked another silly man over the head when the umpire wasn't looking because the second ass had hit that absurd bit of rubber oftener than he, the first ass, had — why, I felt sorry to think that the human species to which I belonged was so devoid of sense.

Fun fact: "1 Wood," the building that now stands on site of the old Montreal Arena, was designed by my father's friend Ray Afleck, the man who also designed the Beaconsfield house in which I was raised.

17 February 2019

Wilfrid Laurier: 100 Years

The great Wilfrid Laurier died one hundred years ago today. Our seventh prime minister, he held the office for more than fifteen consecutive years. Laurier led his party for over three decades, and served in the House of Commons for 44 years, 10 months and 17 days until February 17, 1919 brought all that to an end. At age seventy-seven, his death shouldn't have come as a shock, but contemporary press suggests otherwise. Tribute was paid by George V, but my favourite comes from a commoner who remembered the widow Laurier. It was published in Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier: A Tribute (Ottawa: Modern Press, 1919).

WILFRID LAURIER

Elegy Written on the Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Death
by Mr. T.A. Brown, Ottawa

He'll pass no more, nor shall we backward glance
To note again that loved, commanding form,
Like some fine figure of chivalrous France
Round which men rallied in old times of storm.

A Bayard, ever gallant in the fray;
Lute voiced, a man of magic utterance rare,
What was the spell, the secret of his sway—
The noble life, the silver of his hair?

Unaging and majestic as the pine,
The evergreen of youth within his soul,
Tilting young-hearted with that soul ashine,
He onward bore unto his purposed goal.

With her he loved through shadowed hours and gay.
In rare companionship the sunset road
He walked in such felicity; the way
Seemed rose hung, and the years a lightsome load.

With malice unto none, e'en in defeat;
With charity in triumph, he has stood,
Broad gauge Canadian, after battle's heat,
Speaking the language of wide brotherhood.

The inspiration of his service yet.
The charity, the brotherhood he taught,
Shall light our pathway though his sun be set,
And may we build as nobly as he wrought.

New tasks begin, new duties, new resolves,
For Canada, his land and ours, we take;
And since such partings come as time evolves,
His spirit watching, we new pledges make.

Though mute his lips, the seal of death thereon,
While men remember how he loved this land,
His voice will sound a trumpet leading on—
Great Heart, adieu—bowed at thy bier we stand.

* * *

Dear Lady, in the sadness of this hour
For him we honor as our noblest son,
If our affection and our love had power
To save thee grief, we'd bear it, everyone.